Believing God is Good Changes Everything

If we doubt God’s existence or His goodness, then we must impose on other people to do what only God can do for us.When people fail (and they will), then we can’t get along with them.

Christian counselor Larry Crabb explained how our relationships often fall apart.If we doubt God’s goodness, we cry out to other people, “I need you; you better come through for me.” When people fail us, we hate them. Hating others, we start questioning our own value and worth, and we hate ourselves. But we must survive, so we arrogantly determine to find a way to get what we want. This leads to foolish and self-centered styles of relating to others.

Believing that God is good and that He loves us leads us to think in an entirely different way. Crabb tells us that the joy and peace of knowing that God causes all things to work together for our good frees us to quit worrying about ourselves and motivates us to start being concerned for others. Since God loves every person so much that He died for their sin, the value of any person is extremely high. Any person is worth loving. Any person is worth accepting. Considering people as highly valuable, we can look out for their interests and quit demanding that they meet our needs.

We each struggle in our relationships with family and friends. Sometimes it seems like we just will never be able to get along. This can change if we start trusting the almighty and purely good God who wants to give forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus Christ. From a position of total security we can quit being selfish and start loving people. Then we’ll start getting along.

If you would like to talk with me (Pastor Joe Palmer of Fellowship Baptist) about it,